The fluency of second language (L2) speech can be influenced by L2 proficiency, but also by differences in the efficiency of cognitive operations and personal speaking styles. The nature of cognitive fluency is still, however, little understood. Therefore, we studied the cognitive fluency of Finnish advanced students of English (N = 64) to…

We study how people attend to and memorize endings of events that differ in the degree to which objects in them are affected by an action: "Resultative" events show objects that undergo a visually salient change in state during the course of the event (peeling a potato), and "non-resultative" events involve objects that undergo…

This article discusses the use of the Finnish change-of-state token "aa" that has previously not been identified. The central claim is that even though "aa" indicates a cognitive shift experienced by the speaker, it does not function as a receipt of new information. Instead, the token "aa" indicates that the speaker…

Parents of 592 children between the age of 0 ; 8 and 1 ; 4 completed the Estonian adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (ECDI Infant Form). The relationships between comprehension and production of different categories of words and gestures were examined. According to the results of regression modelling the…

Foreign-language learning is a prime example of a task that entails perceptual learning. The correct comprehension of foreign-language speech requires the correct recognition of speech sounds. The most difficult speech-sound contrasts for foreign-language learners often are the ones that have multiple phonetic cues, especially if the cues are…